right LEDs showing in wrong places?

simony

simony

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Joined
Jun 17, 2024
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Location
225 Heaths Road, Werribee
So last night we had our first test along with music.

Our main issue is the LEDs are lighting up in the wrong spots. It’s the right number of LEDs, the right colours, they respond to the right sequence, effects and timing, but they’re appearing in the wrong spots on the building, and not enough of them all at a time (like 1/3rd LEDs do anything during the sequence).

As best I can tell, my xlights controller ports are correct (1-7), each drawn line/object is set to the right port and controller, the ‘beginning’ strings are set, my lights/string count is correct.

All lights respond correctly when testing ports (all turn on, cycle all colours etc) during tests from the fpp browser and xlights. So they all work and are powered in theory.


Any thoughts? Common first-timer mistakes?
Any forum posts or vids that might help?
 
If you've got xlights on a laptop -- I find it really easy to go out on wifi with output to lights on and then start *testing* that everything is correct.

Create a sequence and then put the on effect on a prop/submodel/string. Does it actually light up where you expect. Go through and do these one at a time.
Then put the bars effect on props and check things like the direction - is it going up-down, left-right, etc.

Isolated sequences like this are the best way to find a lot of these sorts of issues.

(One more thought -- make sure you've uploaded controller outputs to the controller if you've made any changes there? And then once you have - make sure you re-render every sequence)
 
So, if you have a lot of duplicate types of props it is VERY easy to mix them up in the layout. While you might have 4 strait lines and while testing you turn the port 1 on with a strait line and it works, but it might not be the strait line you are expecting. While port 1 might work with any of the 4 strait lines, the sequence only pays attention to which port the prop should be on. You might have strait line 2 on port 3 and 4 on port 1, so the count and model are correct, just not the right prop.

I hope that makes sense? Double check your visualizer and your prop mappings. I have up to 8 of the same props so it is a bit easy to mix them up and I have assigned them to the wrong ports before.

And as always, once you make layout and mapping adjustments re-render your sequences.
 
Our layout is all rooflines and straight line strings, no props of trees etc. I have gone thru the layout line-by-line to confirm all lines are sequential, going the right direction, correct port and correct number of LEDs per line.


I was sat out in our building carpark with my laptop over wifi and could test and turn on each port and all the correct strings for that port would turn on and cycle colours (using FPP and the Baldrick Board testing page).

So the ports themselves are talking to the right lights.


However testing directly from Xlights it wasn’t so perfect. So clearly I’m missing something in our Layout setup & output to the sequence
 
Have you configured it through the controller tab in xLights? Or are you making changes direct on the FPP/baldric?
 
First step is in xlights go to tools>check sequence and make sure nothing is weird in there.
2nd step is in xlights go to tools>test and models/model/controller and test the lights from there.
The models tab allows you to test each model by name. The model shows a visual representation of what that model is. The controller allows to to control models per port.
 
AAH said:
First step is in xlights go to tools>check sequence and make sure nothing is weird in there.
2nd step is in xlights go to tools>test and models/model/controller and test the lights from there.
The models tab allows you to test each model by name. The model shows a visual representation of what that model is. The controller allows to to control models per port.
Click to expand...
I will do this when next onsite to confirm xlights is pointing to the right things.

However I found a good vid online and I am now not confident I have done the required work to align Universe & Channel count settings across XLights > FPP > Baldrick Board settings. So it wouldn't surprise me if 1 of those 3 are freaking out about how many channels to utilise etc.
Which I believe having those 3 aligned would then help when testing from xlights or any other dashboard.
 
So with a Baldric as your controller - the work should be:
* Set it all up in the Controller tab
* Upload to the Baldric (Using the "Upload Output" button on the bottom right)
* Upload it to FPP (using FPP Connect)

With 1 controller (especially something newer like a Baldric) - you probably shouldn't need to think about configuring Universes or Channels or aligning them.
 
simony said:
However I found a good vid online and I am now not confident I have done the required work to align Universe & Channel count settings across XLights > FPP > Baldrick Board settings
Click to expand...
Don't use E1.31 unless a controller explicitly needs it and doesn't support DDP...... (which is what the Baldrick was built around, E1.31 was shoe-horned in later).
With DDP, there's no Universes, Channels per universe or any other complexity that has the possibility to muddle things up; it only deals with raw channel numbers which are native in xLights etc.
 
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